Victoria Hamah Gossip Dismissed

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Created on Sunday, 05 January 2014 00:00

Victoria Hamah Gossip Dismissed

04 January 2014

The Justice Date-Bah Committee empanelled by the Chief Justice to probe the petition filed by Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie aka Sir John about the Victoria Hamah allegations, otherwise known as VikiLeaks, has dismissed same for lack of substance.

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The dismissal of the allegations made by former Deputy Communications Minister Victoria Hamah in a conversation that Nana Oye-Lithur influenced the outcome of the election petition at the Supreme Court followed a petition filed by Sir John and the subsequent empanelling of the nine-member committee.

No Evidence

The ruling of the committee was contained in a correspondence signed by the Judicial Secretary, Justice Alex Poku Acheampong, the import of which was that there was no evidence to prove the allegation by Victoria Hamah that the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye-Lithur, influenced some Justices that sat on the election petition.

The nine-member committee included prominent legal brains such as Nana Dr. S.K.B Asante, the Chief of Asokore in the Ashanti Region and an international arbitrator; a representative of the Attorney General, Frank Beecham, a legal practitioner and former President of the Ghana Bar Association, among others.

But Sir John, who is also the General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), disagreed with the dismissal, and ruling that the petition had no substance.

“I disagree that the case has no substance,” he said, as he referred to his petition and the accompanying recording of the conversation which informed the empanelling of the Date-Bah Committee. He said the Chief Justice was justified in ordering a probe into the allegation, in opposition to the unconstitutionality of the action, as pointed out by some schools of thought.

Case Alive

The case, he went on, was not dead and would continue to haunt John Mahama, as he alluded to the position of the committee in not having the power to summon Victoria Hamah to appear before it.

All the committee could do under the circumstances, he said, was to state that it had no power to summon Victoria Hamah to appear before it and to therefore declare the case as having no substance.

“Once Victoria Hamah is still alive, the case is not dead. That is not the end of the case,” he said.

He had earlier called for an investigation into the matter, as he believed that there was a lot more to the story.

According to him, “the dismissal of Victoria Hamah, coupled with the deafening silence of President Mahama and his government in not denying the statements by Victoria Hamah, as contained in her dismissal letter, could only mean that they are true and factual.”

VikiLeaks

According to the sacked Deputy Minister of Communications, Victoria Lakshmi Hamah, in her infamous secret recordings otherwise known as the ‘VikiLeaks’, some of the Justices were influenced in their rulings.

In the tape, the embattled former minister was heard telling her confidant that “… I learnt even before the [Supreme Court] judgment, Nana [Oye-Lithur] was with the Justices and all that. You don’t know the role she has played for us to win the court case…”

On the tape, Ms. Hamah specifically indicated that the night before the Supreme Court election petition panel delivered its final judgment, Nana Oye-Lithur went to ‘see’ some of the Justices.

During its sittings, the Date-Bah Committee summoned Sir John and Nana Oye-Lithur. However, Ms Hamah herself failed to appear before the high-powered committee.

Sir John, when he appeared before the committee, according to sources, argued that there must be some truth in the VikiLeaks, because Ms. Hamah made the statement without being prompted. She was indeed alleged to have made the statement in the comfort of her car while having a conversation with her colleague.

Sir John, a lawyer by profession, who represented himself, reportedly only repeated his doubts about the outcome of the long-drawn election petition based on the serious allegations raised by Ms. Hamah in the VikiLeaks.

Nana Oye-Lithur had also denied knowing anything about the said statement made by Victoria Hamah. The empanelling of the committee was not without controversy, as its constitutionality became a subject of query by a number of lawyers. By Mary Anane Source: Daily Guide/Ghana